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Hey there fellow Citizens! Below is episode 32 of Around the ‘Verse! Link to Gifs of Sneak Peek Transcript by Erris Around the ‘Verse Episode 32 Notes Intro: Empire Report Election Protests as non-citizens...

focusing on characters, getting a reproportioned skeleton. There’s a new base male character, made using camera scanning technology, to be as realistic as possible.

Giant camera rig used to scan various models with 180 different cameras. All old characters are being repositioned to match with the new character form that’s been created

love given for the FPS demo that’s coming soon.

Facial animation rig as well

figuring out how that’s performing in MAYA and in engine.

50 cameras in the rig, used to capture the facial detail of people really well. High quality and high realism. They’re capturing facial expressions as well, sending them to a company called 3Lateral who will be developping the facial animation system. Very promising results so far.

Also taking a look at the FPS characters, pipeline issues in terms of texturing and materials and stuff

get the assets looking as good as they can, and as industry leading as possible.

trying to maintain the quality that Crytek did, and improve on that to be industry leading.

endoo, deedoo, pixel suite? various software they’re using.

Good few weeks till we get to see what they’re doing, but it’s looking very good.

New attachment system

the way characters are ‘made’ in the game is going through significant change. Any clothing or armour is attached in a new way.

allows more fidelity with what is attached, and where it’s attached.

Items used to always have to be in the exact same place. Trying to use the same kind of mount system as the ships.

Interesting and powerful bit of kit that will really help character customization.

Making sure they focus all the needs of the process, trying to think of the bigger picture when it comes to the pipeline. They’re making sure there’s enough versatility to support all the various modules.

things from earrings to mobiGlas, outfits, armour, it’s going to be a good system.

the character you have in FPS will be the same in all the modules. Consistency across the universe. This is still in development, but that’s the goal.

Sounds like they’re doing a LOT of good work to make sure the character systems are coming along, and are awesome.

Illfonic

progress on FPS

at PAX we’ll see the grapple beam attachment to a pistol.

anti-grav situations, they do’t require much force to propel you somewhere. The gun is built specifically for the battle arena right now, it essentially pulls you like a magnet towards areas. For use in 0g.

Works like a linear hook, but with some swing. Not a rope though. Gets you from A to B.

Ammo Crates and Recharge stations.

weapons with bullets, you can get extra magazines from ammo crates, same with laser weapons and recharge

Working on items for the shops in the social module (one is the difribulator)

Social module will have 3-4 shops to go in and browse. No purchasing or inventory management for initial release, but that’ll come soon after. Items will be viewable though.

NPC’s we’ll be seeing

bar patrons are being concepted and modelled.

medic character just got skinned.

Getting to the point where they’ll transition to a new AI system, with the help of Moon Collider.

setting up ‘smart objects’ that the AI can find and use. Bar booths, spot on the dance floor, serve drinks, etc…

lot of set up, lot of tedious work, but it’s goin to help the world feel alive.

living breathing universe.

Back to Ben and Sandi

REC talk.

A lot of feedback out there. Travis Day, its producer, and Calix Reneau its designer, will talk about it.

The idea behind REC.

REC comes because AC, with all this great stuff, was sort of locked to a lot of people. REC needs to be future-proof. They want it to exist now, and exist all the way to when SC comes out, always. It needs to be a functional system no matter what.

System needs to be accessible.

Started down the road to REC a long time ago. It’s been coming together as AC has been coming together. The context of watching people play the game has been instrumental in creating REC.

People get drawn to certain build, drawn away from others.

Missiles were unbalanced. People who wanted to play actively avoided using them, so they could play.

Up to CIG to open things up so anyone can experience it.

That’s what REC is about. Being able to have short term goals that you can go for.

They’ve been following the community feedback very closely.

It’s good to be able to get instant feedback.

Lots of people had questions about duration based rentals.

Right now, the duration system works that you rent something, and you have 7 days of use. When you log in, you’ve used up one day, and you’ve got a period of 24 hours of use before another day gets ‘used’.

they don’t have second-to-second data, but they still need something that’s granular.

Rent an m50, play one day, go away for three weeks, when you come back, you still have six days of rental.

Ships have their default loadouts with them. Doesn’t start with empty hardpoints.

It’s a first pass at the system, and it leaves a lot of room to do more. They’re listening to the feedback, and they’re evaluating constantly. It will continue to grow and evolve, just like the game itself.

More of that interview is up on CIG’s youtube channel.

MVP

MVP is changing up a bit. Bringing us an Organization.

XPLOR does a really good job with keeping people up with news. Monthly magazine. In-fiction lore, etc…

If you’re new to star citizen, you should check them out.

MVP goes to Scorpy about Medicines.

Interview with Austin Art team – by Ryan Archer

Interview with Austin Art team – by Ryan Archer

David Jenesen – lead character artist. Responsible for getting characters looking good, and making sure they are working in the universe.

Meghan Cheever – character concept art. She makes the concepts for the people who do the 3D work.

Austin’s now the PU studio, so they’re looking at the bigger picture now.

Character customization, how’s that coming along?

working closely with the UK studio

having to meet lots of the same goals, but Austin’s not as specialized as UK.

Lots of the work is about making sure all the pieces fit together and work together.

Balance between variety and uniqueness of pieces.

SC is a very realistic game. Pushing for a better visualization, how does that affect character customization?

Fidelity. Pushing to be higher detail than most other games. Higher texture resolutions etc…

Working on a lower fidelity game, you could cheat. Didn’t have to add as much detail. Like a photographer working on a close-up photograph vs far away. But it takes more time to do assets

but it’s a much higher ‘bar’, the realism. It’s naturally compared to life, so getting it that good is important.

Situation with customization across the board that all the character artists in Austin and the UK, things have to look like photographs. When you mix and match clothes, you have to be able to tell what it is, texture as well. Fidelity is an exciting challenge.

How does that affect the concept stage?

Making sure everything makes sense. Seams, jackets can close, shoes buckle up like they should. Paying a lot attention to real clothes to make sure things work. Keeping things very realistic.

the world is frightening when it comes to fashion, apparently.

Thinking about things that are going to be 1000 years in the future. What’s it going to be like?

2001 the movie looked nothing like 2001 in real life, and a big thing this year across facebook and the like has been where’s our hoverboard?

What filmmakers see of the future is completely different. Where’s our Minority Report screen?

that’s a big challenge as a concept artist right? How can something be futuristic but still realistic?

we’ve been keeping it realistic. Not super-sci-fi concepts, want to keep it grounded.

Means changing materials and patterns is more important than fancy outfits. Relatable, but not too far out-there. Finding a happy medium between futuristic and modern.

Only so many ways you can fasten a shirt together. Laser zipper don’t really make much sense.

Half the office is wearing Chuck Taylors, and they’ve been around for essentially ever.

Trying to interface with other teams like the UK office. How has that been working?

Lots of challenges, from people with different expereiences and different ways of doing things.

Big thing right now is working with Andy Matthews, lead in UK, about synching up the customization system so that both teams assets work together. helps build a library of assets.

Relatively easy using Skype and things to put images up and get almost instantaneous feedback from CR and others. It’s pretty easy to communicate in some ways.

Feedback has always been what’s needed for the assets, and what’s needed to help the game and the fans.

Lots of trolls exist, so getting feedback that’s just meant to push the art is really good.

It’s allowing the artists to grow on a global scale. UK has their own character team, and there’s some inevitable competition between the different teams, pushing everything to be higher quality.

The way the Games industry is…UK studios (not CIG one) doesn’t really hire easily unless you’re there. It’s nice to have people from different studios all over that have had different experiences.

Such a blended wealth of knowledge from an amazing group of talented people. It makes everyone’s work better.

CR has a VERY high bar. It pushes everyone. It can be frustrating initially when he says your work isn’t good enough, but it pushes you to get better, which is good.

Do you guys feel intimidated sometimes, showing your work to CR?

Sometimes. Certainly in the beginning, yeah. At the beginning it was like…showing your stuff to an icon.

But it’s never been ‘this is bad, go home, you’re fired’, it’s always ‘I think this can be better, and here’s how you can do it’. Feedback is really focused.

Middle of the road feedback, or ‘that’s bad’ with no real explanation, doesn’t help.

Challenge with the industry is, the difference between being a gallery artist and a commercial artist is how do you be passionate about your work, without getting attached to it?

people who succeed are people who find that balance. Have to be passionate and be able to take feedback. It’s a balancing act.

You can get scared when you put your first thing out there, but it’s never as bad as you thinkg.

How do you (Meghan) like working in this environment?

It’s been great. Been shown the world of extreme detail when it comes to clothing, and being surrounded by other professionals and getting feedback is great. Haven’t been working here for long, but have definitely noticed an improvement in my work already.

Being in the art team for the persistent Universe…it’s pretty ambitious right?

Yeah, we’ve got a LOT of work to do. Pretty big task figuring out what everyone’s going to look like, between NPC’s and players, and what everyone’s wearing…

Difference between doing the PU and a regular game, you feel like the founding fathers. You have to think hundreds of years in the future, we need systems that will be flexible for expansion. But if you spend too much time with those, you don’t make any decisions, so you have to make these decisions sometimes, but every one you get past, it gets a bit better and a bit easier. Helps form rules for flow and pipeflow.

Difference is how often you can be using them. Energy weapons have unlimited ammo, restricted by heat and power.

Ballistic weapons have ammo, but can punch through shields.

Both are equally powerful, but they have different situations to use them in.

Both types are available on all ships.

Those are the two types of guns. There are also missiles, neutron weapons, etc…

Explanation of weapon groups and how to change keymaps.

Targeting systems next time.

GIFs of weapons:

Name: TARANTULA 870 – MK2Type: BALISTIC CANNONSize: 2Manufacturer: GALLENSON TACTICAL SYSTEMSDescription: Fed by Gallenson Tactical’s patented SpinGlide drum ammunition system, the Tarantula GT-870 can smoothly and accurately deliver a variety of medium caliber ballistic shells. Though it only has moderate rate of fire, its trustworthy durability makes it a dependable addition to any fight. (Please note: this is not a Gatling cannon.)

Name: SW16BR2 “SAWBUCK”Type: BALLISTIC REPEATERSize: 2Manufacturer: BEHRINGDescription: The SW16BR2 Sawbuck is Behring’s contribution to the expanding Ballistic Repeater market. Its sequential-firing tri-barrel configuration offers an effective middle-ground for operator’s looking for a higher rate of fire than a cannon, but without the fear of overheating that you would get with a gatling.

Name: MANTIS GT-220Type: BALLISTIC GATLINGSize: 2Manufacturer: GALLENSON TACTICAL SYSTEMSDescription: The Mantis GT-220 is a hydraulically-driven Gatling-type rotary cannon designed to deliver smaller rounds at a very high rate of fire. The Mantis is designed to shred armor on very fast targets, sacrificing power for absolute saturation of the target area.